Monday, August 10, 2009
Reality of Reunifying?
We have been so lucky so far in regards to foster parenting. Reunification went smoothly with Little Guy. I know that the only reason I can be so positive about this situation is that I did not hand over that baby to the person who had abused him. Give me that situation and I will not handle it as well. If we are given a child who has been abused at the hands of their parents, then a few months later are made to reunify them--then that will be the fault of the system if they are abused again. That is the scenario I hope to avoid. Due to lack of my experience I have no idea how often this happens. Any insight?
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2 comments:
I wonder the same thing.
We fostered more than 100 children, not including emergency placements, respites or short term placements. Out of all those children, we only had a handful return home. None of them were in custody due to abuse, all but one was in custody for neglect and/or drug issues in the home. Every child that we reunified was back in state custody within 6 months and one was back in state custody within 2 weeks. In my experience in my state, both as a foster parent and as a social worker, abuse cases are less likely to reunify than neglect cases. In all my years, I've only seen a few child abuse cases that were successfully reunified with the abuser still in the home and those children were older when reunification finally happened (as in teenagers, old enough to get help if they needed it).
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